In Our Uncleanliness, We Bear Monsters by Syar S. Alia
I wrote this poem based on the prompts “extinct animal”, “love” and “loss”. It came from a listicle about the most recently extinct animals, a Wikipedia search of the Pyrenees and a story a cab driver told me in Portugal. I wrote about six versions of this poem and even the draft of what became this poem wasn’t working at all for me, until I went crazy with indentations and made this poem the shape of a snake. Or a river. Or a set of stairs. Whatever it is, it worked, I hope. I’m kind of proud of this thing now.